Last November I received an email notifying me that a contact of mine was having a birthday a few days from when the email was sent. This email was sent by a service called “Plaxo” I had signed up for it years earlier, and never really got into using it. However it had connected me to a few of the people I knew and had previously worked with, including this woman, who’s birthday was coming up soon. The only problem was that she had been dead for over two years.

The whole thing kind of creeped me out, and sent me off thinking about how our online “connected” lives don’t always keep up with the real thing. Now the web sites that this lady had were all offline or taken over by other people, repurposed… But just like her, that part of her life was removed, deleted… Basically buried just like she was. But here was Plaxo humming along, asking me if I wanted to send her an e-card, or some online present.

To be honest, she and I didn’t end our working relationship on a good note. So this intrusion of her back into my life just brought up lots of memories of the difficulties that we had experienced. I never wished ill of her, but I didn’t wind up liking her.

This got me to thinking. What should happen to all our fingerprints (so to speak) that we leave on services like Facebook, twitter, or google plus? Not to mention our business web sites, personal web sites that we own (for example this site)? Should there be some kind of procedure that would allow our loved ones to dispose, archive, or continue on with our sites/profiles? Honestly I wouldn’t want to saddle my loved ones with running the sites I have. Where do all my business connections on linked in go? Recently a coworker where I work died of a massive heart attack. It was shocking, and mind numbing. How long do they keep his information at work? Who owns it? The family, or the company?

Jus something I have been thinking about. I will probably return to this topic one day, but today I just wanted to see where the stream of consciousness would take me.